Inside the secret Nazi WW2 tunnels hidden deep beneath the Dutch countryside where 900 military buildings once stood and which 135,000 people called home

The monumental building project was designed to help the Germans maintain their iron grip on the Continent

By Sam Webb and Allan Hall

17th May 2017, 3:58 pm

Updated: 22nd May 2017, 8:15 am

A LOST city of underground bunkers built by the Nazis on the Dutch coast during the Second World War has been laid bare in these astonishing pictures.

The bunkers, tunnels, living quarters and stores run throughout the coastline near The Hague and run deep under the city itself.

Solveig Grothe

These bunkers once housed thousands of German troops

Its builders named it the "string of pearls" and, with the aid of original German army blueprints, they are now being restored to their original condition by military enthusiasts and archaeologists so future generations can visit.

Many of the bunkers were re-discovered when sands facing the North Sea shifted for the first time since the end of the war.

They were constructed by legions of Dutch slave labourers and German army engineers as part of the Atlantic Wall Hitler constructed from Norway to the Bay of Biscay in France in a bid to thwart Allied invasion plans of his "Fortress Europe".

mos

HOW COULD HE?

Thug hurls puppy into crocodile-infested lake… and it is attacked in seconds

DOPPEL-CLANGER

LEG CRUSH HORROR

BACK FROM THE DEAD

Parents DISCOVER newborn baby they thought died seven years ago is ALIVE

MANHOOD MAIMED

Wife hacks off husband's penis and testicles and flushes them down TOILET

Solveig Grothe

A Nazi eagle stencilled on the wall of one of the bunkers

Michael Stuerzer

The military complex is now being painstakingly restored by enthusiasts

Dutch ministry of defence architect Gustaaf Boissevain said: "We only have a few of these pearls, there are much more. It is a real treasure."

Hitler invaded The Netherlands on May 10 1940 and the country was conquered within five days.

The Nazis soon set about the building project that they hoped would keep the country forever under the jackboot.

In 1942, Scheveningen, originally a fishing village, then a fashionable seaside resort and now a district of The Hague, became a restricted area.

Some 135,000 inhabitants had to leave their homes as the bunker complex was built to house 3,300 troops under the command of the dreaded Waffen-SS.

Eerie 'ghost of mystery RAF World War Two pilot' stalks hallway of former air force site

Michael Stuerzer

Incredibly, 500 intact bunkers have been discovered in the past few years

Solveig Grothe

Scheveningen, then a fashionable seaside resort, became a restricted area

A bunker was also built here for Arthur Seyss-Inquart, the dreaded Nazi ruler of Holland, who would hang for his war crimes at Nuremberg.

Around 900 military buildings, both surface and subterranean, were made from more than 100,000 cubic metres of reinforced concrete.

A total of 500 intact bunkers have been discovered in the past few years as part of a project by the Scheveningen Atlantic Wall Foundation.

Jacques Hogendoorn, one of the scheme's volunteers, said: "I grew up in the 60's when all Germans were monsters and all the Allies were lover boys. Now we are trying to tell the historical story as it was and without omitting anything."

Michael Stuerzer

More than 100,000 cubic metres of reinforced concrete were used in the complex's construction

Foundation secretary general Jos Louwe, said the Dutch had problems facing up to the occupation after the war.

He said: "After the war, every Dutchman was a resistance fighter.

"Nobody wanted to talk about collaboration, certainly not about about the 20,000 volunteers in SS units."

Mr Louwe said Dutch children grew up playing on the beaches where the snouts of the bunkers, which once held menacing large-calibre guns, gradually filled with sand and litter.

Now, like ancient Egyptian tombs, they are being opened one by one.

Solveig Grothe

The Atlantic Wall was designed to thwart an Allied invasion of the Continent

Wartime lettering painted on by the German residents is still visible in many of them - PAK on one wall standing for anti-tank gun, K for coast, FLUW for aircraft spotters scanning the skies for Allied planes.

Christened the Great North Road, the mile-long bombproof tunnel runs right inside the Rock of Gibraltar.

Restorer Alexander Fokke said the German army ordered local contractors to add spaces and corridors for weapons, ammunition, crew, kitchens, toilets and saunas - "almost like a small village, only bomb-proof."

Military history had long been frowned upon in the Netherlands.

"We were pacifists, we were not talking about military things," says foundation member Peter Koster, head of the anti-terrorism department at Europol.

Michael Stuerzer

The bunkers once bristled with fearsome weaponry to turn back the Allied tide

Solveig Grothe

The Dutch have traditionally been unwilling to talk about the Nazi occupation

He says that times have changed and that now it is considered "legitimate" to be interested in the preservation of this Dutch stretch of the Atlantic Wall.